http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
ACCORDING TO THE LATEST NEWSWEEK POLL, Sen. John McCain is now in a
statistical dead heat with Gov. George Bush in New Hampshire. McCain has
courage and charisma -- everything except an agenda.

From the get-go, Bush decided he didn't need conservatives and ran blindly
toward the middle of the road. His platform (if it can be dignified as such)
is puree of platitudes served on a bed of ambiguity.

By contrast, there's nothing flaccid about McCain, who spent
five-and-a-half years as a guest of the Hanoi Hilton. There's also nothing
that offers hope to those longing for a return to Reaganesque principles.

John McCain is the candidate of The New York Times editorial page and the
"CBS Evening News." His key issues -- campaign-finance reform and
anti-tobacco legislation -- are selected for their media appeal.

Concern about alienating his most ardent supporters causes McCain to
regularly tack left on his ostensible conservative stands.

In August, he told The San Francisco Chronicle that, as president, he would
not seek to overturn Roe vs. Wade. When reminded that this was a complete
reversal of his position only a year earlier, the senator promptly reversed
himself again -- not hard to do when your convictions are ephemeral.

In his 15 years in Washington, McCain established a generally conservative
record-- about what you'd expect from a man who represents a very
conservative state. But he never pushes conservative causes. His pro-forma
votes are constantly undercut by media-appeasing rhetoric.

McCain has voted against gay marriage and efforts to add homosexuals to the
class of protected persons for civil-rights purposes, but supported
expanding hate-crimes laws to include sexual orientation

Then, to placate his media handlers, McCain criticizes his party for not
reaching out to gays (if they're just another minority to be courted, why
shouldn't they also be protected?) and recently met with the Log Cabin Club,
a gay Republican group.

The senator is intoxicated by media acclaim. As president, what wouldn't he
do to maintain their favorable opinion of him?

The McCain's guiding lights are honor and duty. While these are admirable
virtues (especially after seven years of a man who has neither), they don't
add up to a philosophy of government.

Dwight David Eisenhower, another military man, was our last president
without a worldview. Ike did well in a non-ideological era. After four
decades of the leftist assault on our national values, this isn't nearly
enough.

We need a president who understands what's at stake in the culture war the
way Ronald Reagan understood the stakes in the Cold War. McCain betrays no
comprehension of the struggle that defines our age.

When asked what he'd do on a number of economic issues, McCain airily
speaks of convening a panel of the "best minds" (a la Ross Perot) and
letting them decide on a course of action.

We elect a man -- not a panel -- president. Voting for a president who
intends to govern by committee (because, after almost two decades in
Congress, he doesn't know where he stands on no-brainers like tax reform) is
like choosing a mystery package from a grab bag.

McCain is a candidate without a program and a hawk without a compass.
America needs to be defended, no less in the post-Cold War era. Like the man
he would succeed, McCain can't seem to distinguish threats to America's
security and vital interests from mere annoyances.

During the bombing of Belgrade, the senator fairly salivated for a ground
offensive. The justice of our dubious cause aside, fighting the Yugoslav
army on its terrain would have been a bloody business. How many Americans
would have died to bestow statehood on a gang of narco-terrorists who are
now merrily butchering the province's remaining Serbs?

If McCain would spill American blood over Kosovo, is there anything too
trivial for his trigger-happy impulses?

To make all of this infinitely worse, John McCain is an authentic hero. It
gives everything he does an aura of moral authority. Imagine how much more
damage Bill Clinton would have done if he'd had credibility.

You don't question the courage of a decorated war hero. If that image were
harnessed to the right causes, it would be a godsend.

Given McCain's issues hollowness, and affinity for the media's accolades,
it makes him all the more
dangerous.